Beijing welcomes world to 2008 Olympic Games

(BEIJING, 8 August) -- China welcomed the world to the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games on Friday with the roll of thunder from two thousand fou drums and a battering of fireworks across the Chinese capital -- from the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square to the National Stadium.

A general view is seen while Sarah Brightman and Liu Huan sing
on top of a large globe during the Opening Ceremony for the
Beijing 2008 Olympic Games at the National Stadium on August 8,
2008 in Beijing, China.(Photo credit: Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)

Fourteen thousand performers offered the 91,000 people in the National Stadium, popularly known as the 'Bird's Nest,' a history lesson in China's contribution to world civilization. The spectators that packed the stadium held the first of some seven million tickets to the 2008 Beijing Games, in which nearly 11,000 athletes will jump, run, cycle, fight, swim, sail, ride and shoot their way to Olympic glory.

The Opening Ceremony began with a 9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 countdown in the Beijing dusk. Then a roar of thunder came from the floor of the National Stadium where 2,008 drummers beat line after line of fou, an ancient Chinese percussion instrument. The drummers chanted as they struck the fou, "Friends have come from afar, how happy we are." This phrase comes from the work of Confucius (551 BC-479 BC), one China's most important educators and thinkers.

A general view of drummers performing during the Opening Ceremony for the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics at the National Stadium on August 8, 2008 in Beijing, China. (Photo credit: Adam Pretty/Getty Images)

A general view of drummers performing during the Opening
Ceremony for the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics at the National
Stadium on August 8, 2008 in Beijing, China.
(Photo credit: Adam Pretty/Getty Images)

To begin, 29 huge firework displays were shot up into the air across the four axis of the ancient capital: the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, the Temple of Heaven, and just above the National Stadium. The impressive firework display was intended to remind viewers of China's legacy as the civilization that invented gunpowder, first used in China during the Song Dynasty (960-1276 AD).

As the firework footprints reached the Bird's Nest they illuminated the Olympic Rings in the stadium bringing a resounding round of applause from the audience.

Few could see the steel wires and pulleys that carried fairies across the sky above the Olympic rings.

In the second act, children representing each of China's 56 minority groups carried the five-starred national flag across the stadium to soldiers who were waiting to hoist it onto one of two flagpoles nearby. After the flag was raised, all joined in the singing of the Chinese national anthem, 'The March of the Volunteers.'

Fireworks go off after the torch is lit during the Opening Ceremony for the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics at the National Stadium on August 8, 2008 in Beijing, China. (Photo credit: Alexander Hassenstein/Bongarts/Getty Images)

Fireworks go off after the torch is lit during the Opening
Ceremony for the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics at the National
Stadium on August 8, 2008 in Beijing, China.
(Photo credit: Alexander Hassenstein/Bongarts/Getty Images)

The second flagpole awaited the Olympic flag.